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Related Articles at last100:

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• CBS scores big with March Madness on Demand
• Joost makes live-streaming video available, starting with March Madness
• A reminder for hoops fans: Final Four is broadcast “in the cloud” this weekend
• Weekly wrapup: Hulu goes social, Apple Netbook, Kindle usability, Nokia music, and more

You can also find “Kath & Kim,” “Crusoe,” “My Own Worst Enemy,” “Life,” Lipstick Jungle,” and “30 Rock” everywhere you look — NBC’s Website, iTunes, Amazon’s Unbox, Microsoft Xbox and Zune, Hulu, and through TV providers such as Comcast, Cox, Charter, Dish, and Verizon FIOS.

Did NBC leave anybody out?

“We want to make (programs) available in as many ways as we can so we can get fans,” NBC’s marketing boss John Miller told USA Today. “If you don’t embrace people’s behavior, you can be lost by it.”

NBC’s early-release strategy is at odds with most other networks.

CBS

After offering “Jericho” last year, CBS is putting nothing online this season. Oddly, it’s screening pilots of “Worst Week” and “Gary Unlimited” on American Airlines flights since Sept. 1. It’s also screening “Worst Week” and “The Ex List” at 10 universities.

ABC

“Samantha Who?” “Pushing Daisies,” and “Ugly Betty” will go online this week, but only in approximately six minute clips. That’s hardly worth the effort and teasing to watch.

Fox

The network offers no advanced premiers this year after serving up “K-Ville” and “Back to You” last season. “Fringe” (potentially my favorite new show) and “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” were streamed at the same time they aired on TV, but only to on-campus computer users.

Bill Bradford, senior vice president at Fox, told USA Today, “I don’t think anybody’s reached the sweet spot yet in terms of Internet viewing of television.”

CW

The CW held back the pilot of the much-hyped return of “90210″ until its debut. It streamed two shows last year on Yahoo, only to see them fail.

As USA Today notes, the strategy of streaming TV shows before their premiers is risky business, although there is no definitive answer whether it helps or hurts a show’s chance for success. It can build positive word of mouth (what NBC hopes for) or it can spread the news that a show is a dog (what The CW experienced last year).

Either way, kudos to NBC for experimenting again. Raspberries to ABC, CBS, Fox, and The CW for wimping out.

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• ABC streaming shows on AOL
• Moving to No. 8, Hulu continues to impress and gain viewers
• Find out who shot Laura Palmer; CBS adds five classic TV shows for online viewing
• HBO cautiously wades in Internet TV waters with new show “Hooking Up”
• YouTube adds select TV shows from CBS; takes aim at Hulu for long-form video content

Our normal reaction to news that a traditional media company is releasing a new online video player might go something like this: Big deal. They’ll just cripple it so we spend time watching shows on their network.

No so fast buckeroo.

AdAge wrote today that the CBS player will use a content and advertising engine powered by technology acquired in the purchase of Last.fm, the popular streaming music site. The new player will include an HD viewing experience that does not require a separate download, sharing features, and social viewing rooms that let people watch and discuss content together.

CBS was unfortunately vague in its press release today, noting that the new player will present users with:

• “innovative options to interact with content and other users” [last100: what innovative options specifically?]
• “new navigation and search features to make browsing and watching videos more user-friendly” [what new navigation and search features specifically? And isn’t ‘user-friendly’ over-used and meaningless today?]
• and social features that will include embeddable video clips, allowing people to put clips on blogs and social networks

As AdAge notes, with its new online video player CBS Interactive is giving advertisers what they want: better reporting and targeting data. The question is: Will people find the new player intriguing enough that they will sign up and use it themselves and with friends and family, who also must register and adopt?

“If CBS can build in enough valuable, community-oriented features to persuade people to register to use them, it will be able to use that data to give advertisers more immediate, granular ways to measure viewers,” AdAge notes.

The community-oriented features of Last.fm worked well for music, and CBS is betting it will again for video content. Last.fm recommends music to people by comparing profiles and listening preferences to those of others. The same kind of thinking can be applied to video.

We’ll have to wait until this summer to see the new CBS online video player in full action, but even now it’s encouraging to see a traditional media company taking steps (albeit slowly) into the new media world.

“It’s fun to watch the scales fall from the eyes of the big networks as they begin to see the light that is the power of online video,” Chris Albrecht of NewTeeVee wrote today.

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Related Articles at last100:

• Post-Hulu: ABC.com to revamp video player
• Report: 57% of U.S. adult Internet users watch video online
• Report: Dell to introduce (new and improved!) MP3 player
• Report: iTunes still leading music store in the U.S.
• Weekly wrapup, 28 July – 1 August 2008

Joost, the peer-to-peer Internet TV service that once raised $45 million in 2006 from investors such as CBS, Viacom, and Sequoia Capital Index Ventures, is revamping its tech platform [last100] with a Web-based service that requires only a plug-in to play in browsers. It’s due sometime this summer.

Currently Joost requires a downloaded desktop client to play peer-to-peer content. It works with Microsoft operating systems XP and Vista and Apple’s OS X (but Intel processors only).

The Web plug-in is clearly a move to stay afloat and relative amid the success of an online streaming site like Hulu, but two of Joost’s biggest investors, CBS and Viacom, have little to say about the service these days.

Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman was less than enthusiastic about Joost in an interview with paidContent, which asked: “Is the service where he [Dauman] thought it would be?”

“We come at Joost or any other platforms from the point of view that we cannot predict — nor did we in that case or any other case — predict which ones are going to be hugely successful, moderately successful, which won’t work,” he said.

OK then.

As for Joost, Dauman said, “They’ve been trying different things. “They’ve been tweaking the model but we’ve certainly been happy with the relationship.”

Nothing like the avoidance jig.

Will Viacom invest in round two? PaidContent doesn’t think so, leaving Joost’s future and ability to raise second-round funding uncertain.

“We did receive equity in connection with our original deal and we’re happy where we are,” Dauman said. “I don’t think it’s fair to them for me to comment.”

So much for a glowing endorsement.

Investors like CBS and Viacom aside, another sign of Joost’s imminent Deadpool status comes from consumers who were once enthusiastic about Joost’s service and potential. Now they’re saying things on various blogs like:

“It [Joost] is like soooo 20 minutes ago. Hulu is much better.”

And:

“Joost — that was so Thursday.”

And:

“I have it installed on my laptop but I don’t think I’ve used it in the past 6 months. Thanks for the reminder to un-install.”

Ouch.

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• Weekly wrapup, 19-23 May 2008
• NBA teams up with Joost to provide “classic” content, highlights from current season
• Zatz Not Funny: Hulu on Roku?, Sling.com and Mac OSX streaming, XBox 360 gets social, sharing digital media legally
• Will it be enough? Joost to ditch desktop client in favor of Web-based player
• Next.TV and HP gunning for Joost, Babelgum et al

Miss the wacky romantics on “The Love Boat?”

Despair no more. CBS has added select seasons for online viewing of five “classics” at CBS.com and on the CBS Audience Network, which includes sites such as AOL, Joost, CNET, VideoEgg and bunches more. The shows include “Beverly Hills 90210”, “The Love Boat,” “Twin Peaks,” “Family Ties,” and “Perry Mason.”

In addition, CBS has also added seasons for three shows already available online: “MacGyver,” “The Twilight Zone,” and “Hawaii Five-O.”

So who did shoot Laura Palmer?

[Interested in watching vintage TV on the Web? Check out the last100 post “From ‘Alfred Hitchcock’ to the ‘A Team’”]

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• TiVo update adds progressive downloads, multi-room viewing, and TiVoToGo
• Jalipo offers “pay as you go” Internet TV
• “Heroes” now streaming on Netflix and a website near you
• Weekly wrapup, 25-29 Feb 2008

In doing so, Hulu bests all of the major networks — NBC and Fox (Hulu’s parents), ABC, and CBS. It’s an impressive feat.

At the same time, Hulu is expanding its content footprint by adding seven partners, meaning its library of current and vintage TV shows will be more widely available. Hulu videos will be distributed on entertainment and social networking sites TV.com, TVGuide.com, BuddyTV, Flixster.com, MyYearbook.com, Break.com, and Zap2it.com.

“While it is extremely early in terms of Hulu’s history of serving users, we’re quite excited to see such positive trends in Hulu’s growth and viewership,” Jason Kilar, Hulu’s chief executive officer, told Reuters.

In April, people watched 63.2 million videos on Hulu and its partners’ sites and spent on average 129.3 minutes per month, beating nearest rival ABC.com (60.8 million videos, an average of 57.3 minutes).

Hulu, Turner Entertainment New Media Network, CNN Digital Network, Disney Online, ESPN, MSN/Windows Live, Nickelodeon Kids and Family Network, Yahoo!, and Fox Interactive Media — Nos. 10 to 2, respectively — trailed online video behemoth YouTube by a huge margin. YouTube served up 4,052,984 total streams, everybody else combined presented 1,300,658 total streams, according to Nielsen Online.

To Hulu’s credit, it’s one of the few places on the Internet where people can easily find a library of recently broadcast and archived TV shows. It also helps that Hulu’s user interface is clean, reasonably well organized, the video player is above-average, and the quality is great.

In light of its success, NBC Universal digital boss George Kliavkoff said at the Streaming Media East conference that Hulu is beginning to look beyond streaming video on a personal computer to other Internet-connected devices, including mobile phones.

While expansion is laudable, here’s hoping that quick success doesn’t go to Hulu’s head. The whole relationship between TV over-the-air, on the Internet, and available for download hasn’t been worked out yet. No need to get cocky just yet.

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Related Articles at last100:

• Moving to No. 8, Hulu continues to impress and gain viewers
• Weekly wrapup, 19-23 May 2008
• Post-Hulu: ABC.com to revamp video player
• Hulu to debut this month. Is it already too late?
• Hulu really hates the TV, PlayStation 3 blocked

CBS said it had 4.8 million unique visitors throughout the three-week tournament, a 164 percent increase over 1.8 million uniques in 2007. Of course, that’s apples and oranges: This was the first year CBS made the entire NCAA men’s basketball tournament available from start to finish.

Total hours consumed live online were 4.9 billion, up 81 percent from 2.7 billion in 2007. Again, apples and oranges. (via paidContent)

As you might figure, interest in the tournament was greater at the start, when 64, then 32, then 16 teams were involved, expanding the number of fans who might tune in via the Web. The busiest time was during business hours, when people did not have access to a television and the boss was out of earshot.

CBS has not said anything officially about the profitability of March Madness on Demand, but a spokesman got in touch with the folks at NewTeeVee to say it estimates revenues at $23 million, up from an earlier prediction of $21 million.

All in all, not bad for CBS, the NCAA, and tournament winner Kansas. Memphis, however, may see it a bit differently.

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Related Articles at last100:

• CBS to stream NCAA’s March Madness on iPhone and iPod touch
• CBS, NCAA end “blackout” of tournament games streamed via March Madness on Demand
• A reminder for hoops fans: Final Four is broadcast “in the cloud” this weekend
• Joost makes live-streaming video available, starting with March Madness
• Weekly wrapup: Hulu goes social, Apple Netbook, Kindle usability, Nokia music, and more